POLICE, MEDICAL MARIJUANA BACKERS SEEK ODD ALLIANCE

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- An unusual coalition of police and medical
marijuana advocates is struggling to craft a statewide patient and
caregivers' registry that would skirt the legal edges of an adverse U.S.
Supreme Court decision this month.

To do so, law enforcement officials want to shield themselves from learning
the identity of doctors who prescribe marijuana, and perhaps the people who
grow it and the patients who use it -- in part for fear federal agents
might seize the registry.

"We're really walking a delicate line. Law enforcement is supposed to
enforce laws, not break laws," said Pete Herley, who represented the
California Police Chiefs Association at a task force meeting called
Wednesday by Attorney General Bill Lockyer, the state's top law enforcement
official.

The secrecy has become more significant since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled
May 14 that California's landmark Proposition 215 cannot supersede federal
laws against marijuana distribution. Since voters approved California's
medical marijuana law in 1996, eight other states have passed similar measures.

"In California, marijuana is supposed to be legitimate for people who have
a medical need," said Robert Elsberg, who represented the California Peace
Officers' Association at Wednesday's meeting. "We would never support
something that violates federal law. But we will remove our opposition to
it and we would go and tell the governor it's a better system than we have
today."

Police and prosecutors are eager to have an easily verifiable, uniform,
statewide registry so they don't waste time and money charging a legitimate
medical marijuana user who will go free under California law, Elsberg and
Herley said.

Law enforcement groups, along with the state medical society and medical
marijuana advocates, all want to shield doctors who prescribe marijuana in
apparent violation of federal law.

"We don't care who the doctor is. We're not going to go around and bust the
doctor," Elsberg said.

However, a major remaining sticking point in the bill being crafted by
state Sen. John Vasconcellos, D-Santa Clara, is how to verify doctors'
prescriptions while protecting them from federal prosecution.

Law enforcement groups want a variation on the state's existing
requirements for prescribing addictive drugs. But doctors would file their
prescriptions with local health departments instead of the state Department
of Justice, to ensure it never falls into the hands of law enforcement.

Vasconcellos, along with medical marijuana advocates, is balking even at
that protection.

With the acquiescence of law enforcement representatives, Vasconcellos
removed portions of his proposed legislation Wednesday that would have
required counties to check patients' identifying information or verify that
their attending physician in fact has a valid medical license. Counties
would not even have to report how many licenses they have issued.

Until Wednesday, his bill would have given police access to the name, sex,
race, date of birth, address, driver's license and Social Security number
of each medical marijuana patient so they could verify the patient's identity.

But when marijuana advocates vehemently objected that such information
could be turned over to federal agents, Vasconcellos and law enforcement
groups agreed to consider following San Francisco's model, in which
patients are given a 16-digit code number.

Once patients' identifying and prescription information is verified, the
information is destroyed and only the code number and expiration date
remain, said Dr. Herminia Palacio of San Francisco's Public Health Department.

Law enforcement's support is crucial if Gov. Gray Davis is to sign the
measure he squashed two years ago before it reached his desk, said
Vasconcellos.

"If you guys don't support the bill, he won't sign it -- not only support
it, but persuade him he wants the bill," Vasconcellos told police and
prosecutors.